


rita, the strong and powerful!

by uno_steel



Series: tpp prompt fills [2]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Friendship, Gen, listen. all that you need to know about this fic is that rita is INCREDIBLY strong, set in an ambiguous time period where juno and rita are both still on mars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 18:49:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18555682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uno_steel/pseuds/uno_steel
Summary: “Mistah Steel!” Rita chided. “You know ya ain’t supposed to lift anything heavy with your ribs messed up like that!”Before Juno could protest — his ribs were only cracked; he was probably fine — Rita had shouldered her way in front of him and lifted the package blocking the office door.Juno inhaled sharply.





	rita, the strong and powerful!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [artistotle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/artistotle/gifts).



There was a package blocking the office door.  
  
Juno sighed. If he were literally capable of looking on the bright side of things, he may have been relieved that the package had arrived in the first place—the postal service in Hyperion City was notoriously unreliable. Receiving the correct package at the correct address within the expected delivery timeframe wasn’t just rare; it was nearly miraculous.

Mostly, though, Juno was annoyed. Of _course_ his new desk would arrive while he was injured, after he’d been ordered to avoid all strenuous activity for the next few weeks while his ribs healed. 

Still, there was nothing to it. He needed to get inside his office and get to work, so Juno rolled up his sleeves and readied himself to lift the (large, bulky, most definitely heavy) package. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d acted in a medically inadvisable way against a doctor’s specific instructions, and he wasn’t naïve enough to think it would be the last, either.

Even lifting with his legs, his ribs protested almost immediately. The package was—well, it was significantly heavier than he was prepared for it to be, and Juno suddenly regretted purchasing such a sturdy model. It had seemed like a smart investment at the time, given the circumstances that led to him purchasing a new desk. (And—yes, he did realize how that sounded. Unfortunately, he was alluding more to the (fortunately thwarted) kidnapping attempt last week than to kinky desk sex, but also . . . hey, it never hurt to prepare for all eventualities.)

Carefully, Juno rose to his feet. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of Rita standing behind him, arms crossed and with an expression that was clearly expressing her disapproval. Juno winced. His earlier regret was rapidly diminishing in comparison to the guilt he felt now. Juno knew he didn’t take the best care of himself—and he had mostly come to terms with that—but he _hated_ worrying Rita.

“Mistah Steel!” Rita chided, her voice rising sharply on his name. “You know ya ain’t supposed to lift anything heavy with your ribs all messed up like that!”

Before Juno could attempt to protest—his ribs were just _cracked_ ; he was perfectly fine—Rita had shouldered her way in front of him and lifted the package blocking the office door.  
  
Juno inhaled sharply. Which—okay, maybe Rita had a point because _holy fuck_ that hurt. His pain was inconsequential in the moment, though, because his secretary—his _tiny_ secretary, who still wore a child’s size three in shoes—had just lifted a bulky box weighing well over two hundred pounds like it weighed nothing to her.

Frankly, Juno felt like he needed to sit down. Was there any diplomatic way, he wondered, to ask when exactly his secretary had become absurdly strong?

“Rita?” he asked, his voice strangled. Then he paused, searching for the rest of the sentence. If there _was_ a diplomatic way to ask, he was too stunned to properly search for it.

Luckily, Rita had never needed much prompting from Juno before she could pick up on the thread of conversation and run with it.

“Yeah, boss?” she answered. Then, “Oh, oh,  _oh_ , I bet you’re wondering how I’m able to lift this box right now all easy-like! Well, it’s kiiiind of a long story, but basically, you remember that phase I was in a few years ago, with all those early Kanagawa films? Oh, don’t scowl like that, Mistah Steel, I’m only bringing them up for context! Anyway, I know you deliberately avoided them, but in this one series, the  _Love and Dragon-Slaying_ trilogy, Melpomene swept Jackie off their feet while she was rescuing them and I thought, gee, wouldn’t it be nice to be swept up like that? But Rita isn’t the kind of gal to wait for someone else to sweep her off her feet, nuh-uh, so I joined this weight-lifting club a while back so I could maybe sweep someone else off of their feet one day and it turns out I’m actually really, really strong!”

Juno took a minute to process everything that had just been said. Normally, he was much faster with it—years of exposure to Rita and her unique speech patterns would do that to a lady—but frankly, he thought this delay could be chalked up to the shock.

“Okay,” he finally settled on saying. Which, again, shouldn’t have taken him as long as it did, but he was preoccupied with wondering what other aspects of Rita he had overlooked. “That’s, uh—congratulations, I think?”

Rita beamed. “Thanks, boss! See, I _knew_ you would be proud of me. Now, hold the door open for me while I bring this inside?”

Juno obeyed. Then, as she crossed the threshold, he had a realization.

“Wait a minute! You didn’t _really need_  my help to move your couches last week; that was a ploy to get me to watch streams with you!”

“Yep!” Rita admitted cheerfully. Her voice echoed oddly from inside. “And it worked like a charm, too, didn’t it?”

For the second time that morning, Juno sighed. But this time, he smiled, too.

**Author's Note:**

> this story was inspired by @soapteeth’s [very, very good post](https://soapteeth.tumblr.com/post/184190454475/concept-rita-is-super-strong-but-like-you) about strong rita.
> 
> i’m on tumblr @[uno-steel](https://uno-steel.tumblr.com)!
> 
> comments are super, super appreciated!


End file.
